Much food has been consumed, the votes are in. We reveal the 50 … · 2015. 6. 13. · Mexico City, Mexico Eat: Huazontles with chiapas cheese Mexican chef Jorge Vallejo s star is

theworlds50best.com | restaurant | June 2015 | 43

Much food has been consumed, the tables have been crumbed and the votes are in. We reveal the 50 most

inspirational, ground-breaking, experimental and utterly brilliant

restaurants in the world. Bon appétit

➺

44 | June 2015 | restaurant | bighospitality.co.uk

48Schloss Schauenstein

Fürstenau, Switzerland

Eat: Goose liver, with fresh goat’s cheese and maize

It’s hard to imagine a more romantic setting for dinner than this castle in the Alps where

stunning views are matched by the exquisite food of Andreas Caminada. The chef honed his

skills at destinations such as Wirtschaft zum Wiesengrund in Zurich and Bareiss in

Baiersbronn-Mitteltal in Germany, before taking over the restaurant at Schloss Schauenstein in 2003. Since then he has racked up numerous

awards, including three Michelin stars at just 33.

49 new entry

Blue Hill at Stone BarnsPocantico Hills, USA

Eat: Blue Hill bone char cheese: local sheep’s cheese coated in ash from the bio-charred bones

of pigs raised at Stone Barns

This new entry is located at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture – a farm 30

miles north of New York City. There is no printed menu, with co-owner and executive chef Dan Barber producing instead a multi-taste menu called ‘Grazing, Pecking, Rooting’ offering as

many courses as guests want. Service is informal yet ceremonial; before a fish course, for instance,

you might be shown a video of its catch.

50The French Laundry

Yountville, USA

Eat: Charcoal-grilled Alaskan king crab

After more than two decades, Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry has lost none of its appeal.

Cult dishes such as oysters and pearls (a sabayon of pearl tapioca with oysters and white

sturgeon caviar) and coffee and doughnuts remain firm favourites, but the daily changing nine-course tasting menus continue to evolve. Currently undergoing renovation, The French Laundry is running with a temporary kitchen

and will reopen fully this autumn.

45 new entry

RelaeCopenhagen, Denmark

Eat: Pickled mackerel with cauliflower and puréed lemon peel

There’s a refreshing lack of fuss or pretension at this stripped-back restaurant in Copenhagen.

Diners help themselves to cutlery from drawers in the simple wooden tables and pour their own

wine, while the menu is a straight choice between four or seven courses. Set up in 2010 by Christian Puglisi and Kim Rossen, who both

previously worked at Noma, the restaurant’s laid-back, uncomplicated style means the focus

is always kept on the food.

46Restaurant André

Singapore

Eat: Memory – warm foie gras jelly with black truffle coulis

Restaurant André is five this year, making it a youngster in the elite gastronomic sphere. And

yet André Chiang’s restaurant is already admired around the world for its sophistication,

maturity, unusual philosophy and unique character. The chef’s ‘Octaphilosophy’ approach dictates the menu: under ‘Artisan’, diners might

be served grilled Taiwanese baby corn, while ‘Salt’ can comprise crispy potato gnocchi with

smoked oyster cream.

47 re-entry

Alain Ducasse au Plaza AthénéeParis, France

Eat: Green puy lentils and caviar

No one can accuse Alain Ducasse of resting on his laurels. His flagship restaurant in the Plaza Athénée hotel has been reinvented, reopening last autumn with a sparkling new dining room

and radically revised menu. Ducasse and executive chef Romain Meder have based the food around the trilogy of fish, vegetables and

cereal using produce caught or grown in an entirely sustainable and largely organic fashion.

The Sustainable

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42 = new entry

TicketsBarcelona, Spain

Eat: Razor clams with coconut sauce, mushrooms and peanut

Open a few years now, Albert Adrià’s Barcelona restaurant still feels like the future of top-end gastronomy. A sense of fun pervades every

facet of this cinema-themed operation, from the door staff’s eccentric uniforms to the chime of the ice-cream cart’s bell signalling the end of

the savoury phase of the meal. The kitchen, run by Fran Agudo, uses edgy techniques to deliver huge flavour hits in dishes such as raff tomato

with bufala straciatella and basil air.

42 = new entry

BoragóSantiago, Chile

Eat: Venison tartare with maqui berries

With both the Pacific Ocean and the Andes at his fingertips, Chile’s terroir is a culinary

playground for Rodolfo Guzmán. Foraging expeditions might ferret out some pine-forest mushrooms or marine strawberries, as well as

lead to a chance meeting with a lone razor-clam fisherman. Drawing on 18 preparations out of a possible 300 on rotation, his tasting menu can

change during the course of an evening depending on the produce – proof that

biodiversity leads Boragó’s vision.

44 new entry

MaidoLima, Peru

Eat: Barnacle ceviche

Nikkei food is the Peruvian-Japanese cultural blend that has emerged from more than 100

years of Japanese immigration into Peru. Maido is widely regarded as the place to find the finest

execution of the cuisine, led by its leading proponent: Lima-born chef Mitsuharu Tsumura.

Diners choose from either a relatively simple Japanese menu, with expertly-tuned nigiri

made with Peru’s highest quality fish, or the full 15-course Nikkei version that combines

Japanese delicacies with Peruvian ingredients.

40 Per Se

New York, USA

Eat: 100 day dry-aged Snake River Farms beef, ‘langue de veau’ pierogi and borscht

Perched on the fourth floor of the Time Warner Center, Per Se is an elegant space with views

over Central Park. Its nine-course tasting menus feature seasonal American ingredients that

draw on classical French and European cuisine. The Hudson Valley duck foie gras with confit

duck comes with ‘pommes maxims’, black winter truffle and toasted brioche, while

100-day aged beef from Idaho is accompanied by tongue pierogi and borscht.

41Maní

São Paulo, Brazil

Eat: Catch of the day with tucupi, bananas and Mani’s own manioc flour

Set in a former house in São Paulo’s leafy Jardim Paulistano suburb, at Mani diners can

enjoy close-up views of husband-and-wife team Daniel Redondo and Helena Rizzo’s kitchen. Dishes include a gazpacho of jabuticaba (a

grape-like fruit) with cachaça-steamed crayfish, pickled cauliflower and amburana nuts; delicate mouthfuls of foie gras ‘bonbons’ with Brazilian

guava jam; and thin-cut potato crisps with roast beef and Dijon mustard.

Chefs’ Choice Award

Daniel HummEleven Madison Park, USA

Swiss chef Daniel Humm has made an indelible mark on New York’s dining scene. Since moving to the US as executive chef

at Campton Place in San Francisco in 2003, Humm has created and honed an original

cuisine. His cooking at Eleven Madison Park is influenced by his native Europe, but the menus are heavily New York-focused. Part of his appeal is a desire to go beyond usual duties, creating bespoke dishes for

individual customers. One guest cried with joy when Humm served him a Cuban sandwich in homage to his late father.

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36L’AstranceParis, France

Eat: Mushroom and foie gras tart marinated in verjus

Before opening his tiny Paris restaurant, chef

Pascal Barbot did a five-year stint working under Alain Passard at L’Arpège in Paris,

between time spent travelling the South Pacific as a chef with the French Navy and heading

up Ampersand restaurant in Sydney. The experiences have clearly informed his approach

at L’Astrance, which combines French haute-cuisine with exotic Far East ingredients such as

lemon grass, jasmine and daikon.

37 re-entry

BikoMexico City, Mexico

Eat: Foie gras, pineapple and aniseed

Nestled above Mexico City’s Presidente Mazaryk Avenue in upmarket Polanco, Biko

serves two menus – Lo de hoy (Today) and Lo de antes (Before) – in addition to a seven-step

tasting option. Showcasing the best of both Mexico and Spain, chefs Mikel Alonso (French

by birth but Basque-Mexican by heart) and Bruno Oteiza (from San Sebastián) fuse native

Basque flavours with Mexico’s ingredients in dishes such as foie gras candy floss

and geometrical milk origami.

38AmberHong Kong

Eat: Hokkaido sea urchin in a lobster jell-o with cauliflower, caviar and crispy ‘seaweed’ waffle

The training of Dutch-born chef Richard Ekkebus with Guy Savoy, Alain Passard and

Pierre Gagnaire shines through in dishes that marry classical French technique with Pacific seafood and the finest meats from around the

world. Food includes miyazaki wagyu beef strip loin chargrilled with seaweed and tomato dust;

and raw and cooked ‘fukuoka salt’ tomatoes and black garlic caramel, backed by a list of

1,100 wines ranging from France’s finest to sake.

35 new entry

QuintonilMexico City, Mexico

Eat: Huazontles with chiapas cheese

Mexican chef Jorge Vallejo’s star is certainly rising. Kicking off his career on cruise ships, he had a thorough training under Enrique

Olvera in Mexico City and a brief stint at Noma with René Redzepi before opening Quintonil in 2012 with his wife Alejandra Flores, who runs

the front of house. This unprepossessing restaurant focuses on forgotten herbs and

grains and indigenous produce, particularly fruit and vegetables, as much for their flavour

as for their nutritional value.

The Diners Club Lifetime Achievement Award

Daniel Boulud

As a chef, Daniel Boulud is unmistakably French, despite having lived and worked in the US for more than half his life. But as a successful restaurateur, the 60-year-old

has added some of his adopted country’s more positive traits – entrepreneurship,

service culture, embracing new ideas – to his overall make-up. The combination sees

him revered as one of the world’s finest cooks, while also being respected as an international businessman, and being

loved by the industry and customers alike for his engaging personality.

39Quique Dacosta

Denia, Spain

Eat: ‘Tobacco’ leaf and toro

When El Bulli closed in 2011, fans of Spanish techno-emotional cuisine found a ready-made replacement waiting in the wings in the form

of Quique Dacosta. Tweezers in hand, the Extremadura-born chef has been changing

perceptions of the Costa Blanca one minimalist plate at a time. Tobacco leaf and toro, for example, sees sashimi-style slices of tuna

belly served on a bed of smoked, caramelized kelp – micro herbs and onions rings offsetting

the fattiness of the fish.

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32Attica

Melbourne, Australia

Eat: Red kangaroo with bunya bunya

Attica’s chef Ben Shewry is an unusually sensitive soul, and though the defining

characteristic of his public persona is humility, he dreams big both on the plate and off. Though

inspired by his childhood in the remote countryside of his native New Zealand, it is

Australian native ingredients that feature most prominently on his plates, such as sweet King George whiting and pearl-oyster meat cooked

in an envelope of paperbark, an indigenous member of the allspice family.

30Vendôme

Bergisch Gladbach, Germany

Eat: Suckling pig, bean stew, grilled green bananas, curry and macadamia nut

A leading light of the ‘new German school’ of cooking, Joachim Wissler breathes new life into traditional German recipes and ingredients. His

restaurant, part of the historic Schloss Bensberg hotel, is home to avant-garde dishes of French, Asian and New Nordic influence – a reworking

of German dish labskaus uses cod fillet and cod cheek brandade, while steamed pear with white kombu ice cream and ginger jelly is a homage

to Escoffier’s classic dessert poire belle Hélène.

31Restaurant Frantzén

Stockholm, Sweden

Eat: ‘Satio tempestas’ – an array of more than 40 seasonal vegetables grown in the

restaurant’s own gardens

Originally Frantzén/Lindeberg, the restaurant changed its name in 2013 when co-founder Daniel Lindeberg moved on. Frantzén has maintained the same approach since then, focussing on Scandinavian produce, much grown in the restaurant’s own gardens. Its

multi-course tasting menu explores flavour and texture with references to Asian cuisine, but

with a more playful presentation style.

The One To Watch Award

SepiaSydney, Australia

At Sepia, British-born chef Martin Benn’s restaurant, dishes are largely focussed on

deluxe seafood such as Western Australian scampi and Tasmanian abalone. Yet they rely on the umami-muscle of seaweeds and mushrooms rather than butter and stocks for their oomph, while Japanese

citrus and wild Australian plants also sparkle at the edges. Indeed, Benn’s years

spent heading the kitchen at local landmark Tetsuya’s means ingredients

such as kabosu, sansho and dashi happily sit alongside jamón, caviar and quail eggs.

33Aqua

Wolfsburg, Germany

Eat: Cod, veal brawn, cauliflower, brown butter and silverskin onions

Locations for a world-class restaurant aren’t often more unlikely than a motoring theme park adjoining VW’s car factory, but that’s

where you’ll find Sven Elverfeld’s Aqua. The chef’s main schtick is the reinvention of German

peasant food with dishes undergoing avant-garde reworkings. For example, a snack of fresh

local cheese with onion, vinegar and dark malted bread is reimagined as a chilled

appetiser with astounding clarity of flavour.

34Le Calandre

Rubano, Italy

Eat: Extra virgin olive oil risotto with capers, coffee and rose

In 2002 Massimiliano Alajmo – then 29 – became the youngest chef ever to win three

stars shortly after taking over the kitchen from his mother. A decade or so later Le Calandre

continues to evolve. The menus have now been shaken up, primarily to keep in step with the

seasons more easily. Guests now choose from three simple cartes. A classics menu is offered

alongside a more modern iteration and another that’s pitched somewhere between the two.

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25Fäviken

Järpen, Sweden

Eat: Scallop cooked over burning juniper branches

Billed as the world’s most isolated restaurant, Fäviken, in northern Sweden, has captured the imagination of the media and foodies in equal measure. Housed in an 18th-century barn on a

24,000-acre hunting estate, it can serve only 12 diners a night, with guests staying in spartan

rooms on site. Magnus Nilsson’s set menu abounds with ingredients farmed, foraged or hunted on the estate such as grouse and beef

heart, reindeer lichen and cloudberries.

26Alinea

Chicago, USA

Eat: Edible helium balloon

Grant Achatz’s Chicago restaurant is known for its brave approach to food, but there’s more to Alinea than culinary pyrotechnics. As the meal at this restaurant progresses, the service team is able to read the tables and dispatch the most suitable staff at specific times to ensure a truly

personal experience. Achatz’s food remains out of this world, too, from his edible balloon made from dehydrated apple and filled with helium to a dessert plated up at the table like a beautifully

choreographed Jackson Pollock painting.

24 new entry

Ultraviolet by Paul PairetShanghai, China

Eat: Foie Gras Can’t Quit

A visit to Ultraviolet is surreal: part James Bond lair, part psychedelic trip. Guests meet at chef

Paul Pairet’s Shanghai restaurant, Mr & Mrs Bund, to be driven to a secret location where they enter the restaurant, via an industrial lift cage. Inside a white room – white walls, white

table, white chairs for 10 guests – the immersive event begins. Each dish is eaten to a different

soundtrack, while scents waft around the room and the walls and even the tabletop are

transformed with films and pictures.

27Piazza Duomo

Alba, Italy

Eat: Turnip tops, scallops and sea urchins

Famed for its truffles and elegant wines, Alba is the foodie capital of Piedmont and, therefore,

the perfect location for Enrico Crippa’s chic Italian restaurant. The chef showcases the

region’s fabulous produce (including vegetables from the restaurant’s own smallholding) in

dishes that respect Italy’s culinary traditions, while exploring new frontiers. This approach

also reflects Crippa’s CV, which includes spells working with Ferran Adrià, Michel Bras and

Gualtiero Marchesi.

28The Test KitchenCape Town, South Africa

Eat: ‘Blinissoise’ – chilled blini creme, barbecued langoustine ‘en gelée’ langoustine tataki,

liquorice powder

British-born Luke Dale-Roberts worked across Europe and Asia before settling in South Africa.

Rooted in fusion cuisine, his cooking is inventive and intelligent. Unusual plating

enhance dishes; his TK Concrete Ball sees two steaming concrete flowerpots arrive containing

grilled kingklip. This is paired with a snoek medley, black forest ham and fish jus, roasted

potato skin purée and smoked red onion foam.

29Nihonryori RyuGin

Tokyo, Japan

Eat: Seven kinds of Japanese fish

Chef Seiji Yamamoto’s mission at his acclaimed restaurant in Tokyo’s Roppongi district is to convey the richness of Japan’s environment

and its fluctuating seasons through a traditional kaiseki menu. The daily-changing range of small

dishes is shaped by what is available from the city’s markets each morning. The intimate

18-seater restaurant also offers an à la carte menu for a short period each evening and is well known for its seasonal blowfish menu,

which showcases every part of the fish.

Best Restaurant in Africa



21Le Chateaubriand

Paris, France

Eat: Squid salad with sea asparagus, onions, redcurrants and wakame powder

A former stonemason and gardener, Inaki Aizpitarte seems an unlikely candidate to spearhead a mini-revolution. Soon after

opening Le Chateaubriand in 2006, the chef became a leading figure in what has been

dubbed the Parisian ‘bistronomie’ movement: more relaxed, cheaper but no less brilliant

cooking. The fixed €65 menu blends French, Asian and Latin American influences, with small

plates followed by three larger courses.

20The Ledbury

London, UK

Eat: Loin of roe deer baked in Douglas fir with white beetroot, blackcurrants and bone marrow

Chef Brett Graham, originally from Australia, trained with Brit Phil Howard at The Square before opening The Ledbury in Notting Hill, west London, in 2005. The airy restaurant is redolent with discreet luxury, as is the menu,

which champions the best of British. Graham is also a deer stalker and a trip to The Ledbury in

the game season is a treat, with teal, grouse and woodcock cooked to perfection. You may even

find venison bagged by the chef himself.

22Nahm

Bangkok, Thailand

Eat: Green mango salad with grilled pork and sour leaves

At Nahm, Thai culinary tradition overrides the affectations of swanky top-level dining. The

Metropolitan Hotel by Como may be plush in the extreme, but the cooking here is rustic,

gutsy and entirely free of pomp. David Thompson hails from Australia, but the Thais have embraced this ‘farang’ with open arms,

and the chef and food historian is now widely accepted as the world’s foremost practitioner of their country’s beguilingly multi-faceted cuisine.

19Azurmendi

Larrabetzu, Spain

Eat: Egg, cooked inside out and truffle

It’s impossible to discuss Azurmendi without mentioning the ultrasound. Employed to alter the texture of food, this is just one of

the cutting-edge techniques that chef Eneko Atxa has pioneered since his first restaurant

opened in 2005. And it’s far more than a mere headline grabber. Indeed, the Basque native’s

philosophy has always been about pushing boundaries. Truffled egg, for example, is ‘cooked inside out’, with part of the yolk

removed and replaced with truffle consommé.

23White Rabbit

Moscow, Russia

Eat: Rabbit mini cabbage rolls in foie gras sauce with potato crisps and truffle juice

Heading a new wave of Russian chefs, Vladimir Mukhin claims to have borscht running in his veins. The beetroot soup certainly flows at his Alice in Wonderland-themed restaurant where

it is given a modern makeover, served with beans, fried crucian (carp), sour cream and

turnip chips. The dish is emblematic of Mukhin’s philosophy of re-imagining Russian cuisine

using contemporary techniques and international ingredients.

The World’s Best Pastry Chef

Albert Adrià Tickets, Spain

With his Barcelona restaurant Tickets, Albert Adrià has stepped out of the

shadow of his more famous brother Ferran. Adrià headed the seminal Roses

restaurant’s pastry section for many years, and latterly led its development kitchen. At

Tickets, dishes such as ‘pancakes’ can be seen being constructed from an

impossibly thin layer of caramelised sugar and filled with a cloud-like rum cream.

Adrià does not restrict his output to pastry; he is a formidable talent when it comes to

savoury dishes too.

Highest New Entry

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16Pujol

Mexico City, Mexico

Eat: Mole Madre (mole sauce cooked for more than 600 days with a portion of new mole in the middle)

A modest room in Mexico City’s swanky Polanco district is home to the country’s finest restaurant, housing just 13 tables in a minimalist and

moody monochrome setting. Chef Enrique Olvera trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and even opened a restaurant in Manhattan, but his cooking is firmly rooted in his homeland. Pujol employs modern Mexican techniques and native ingredients to recreate ancient dishes and invent

new ones that showcase unusual flavour combinations.

17Arzak

San Sebastián, Spain

Eat: The Red Egg

Before El Bulli and Ferran Adrià there was the mighty Juan Mari Arzak, and after El Bulli we have the restaurant’s second generation, Elena Arzak

Espina. Eggs have really made the restaurant’s name (eggs poached in a bag are now known in kitchens throughout the world as ‘Arzak eggs’)

and the latest version, the Red Egg, doesn’t disappoint. Combining piquillo peppers and crisped-up trotter meat, it’s the best thing to happen to the humble yolk-and-pork combination since Heston

Blumenthal first stuck bacon in his ice-cream churn.

18Le Bernadin

New York, USA

Eat: Warm kingfish ‘sashimi’ and caviar in a light marinière broth

Le Bernadin began in Paris, made its name under Gilbert and Maguy Le Coze in Manhattan – profoundly influencing American restaurant

culture for the better along the way – and now, with Éric Ripert at the helm since 1994, has become an international byword for

culinary excellence. Its fish cookery is the stuff of renown, combining the technical brilliance of Japanese handling and butchery (ike-jime

brain-spiking, rigorous cold-chain management) with classical French flair on the stoves.

15SteirereckVienna, Austria

Eat: Char cooked in beeswax with yellow carrot, pollen and sour cream

Rising from the banks of the River Wien in the form of a giant glass monolith, chef Heinz Reitbauer’s restaurant provides a striking

counterpoint to the monuments to Vienna’s artistic elite that line the walkways of the Austrian capital’s Stadtpark. Since taking the reins of

his family’s restaurant in 2005, Reitbauer, who trained under Joël Robuchon and Anton Mosimann, has earned a reputation for marrying cutting-edge process with classical ingredients. In doing so, he’s writing

a thrilling new chapter in Austrian cooking.


12 L’Arpège Paris, France

Eat: Beetroot tartare with horseradish cream

There were those who thought Alain Passard was going mad when he announced several years back that he would turn Arpege’s focus

to the vegetables he was raising at his biodynamic farm just outside Paris. Now, in 2015, it seems the epitome of fashion. Passard is rightly

considered a culinary genius – his brilliant reimagining of the tarte tatin doesn’t deconstruct the dish but improves it, forming the apple slices

into rosettes atop the pastry to maximise the surface area for caramelisation and texture.

13Asador Etxebarri

Atxondo, Spain

Eat: Homemade chorizo

Victor Arguinzoniz is now regarded as a godfather of creative European barbecue, such is the impact Asador Etxebarri has had on the global food

scene over the past decade. Today, chefs from across the globe flock to his humble restaurant nestling in the Atxondo hills to see him and

his bespoke wood grill at work, before taking inspiration back to their homelands. Everything on the menu, from wild red tuna belly

to raw chorizo tartare, has the delicate kiss of smoke that rolls around your taste buds like a warm embrace.

14Astrid & Gastón

Lima, Peru

Eat: Apple ceviche

Gastón Acurio is the undisputed king of Peruvian cuisine, revered for elevating the food of South America’s westernmost country to five-star

status. His empire stretches throughout South America, and the new palace headquarters are in the historic hacienda of Casa Moreya, close to

his childhood home in the upscale San Isidro district of Lima. Here Restaurant Astrid & Gastón – overseen by Acurio’s long-time culinary

cohort Diego Muñoz – serves food that encompasses flavours from every part of this richly diverse country.

11 Mirazur

Menton, France

Eat: Red prawns with asparagus, borage and wild garlic flowers

Perched on a hillside adjacent to the Franco-Italian border in Menton, Mirazur comes to life with the ingredients, flavours and colours of the Côte d’Azur. Argentine-born chef Mauro Colagreco brings

both innovation and simplicity to his degustation and regularly changing carte blanche menus. Colagreco combines avant-garde techniques

to tell a story where the local, fresh produce plays the role of protagonist, surprising guests with exciting cooking methods,

textures, and temperatures.

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8NarisawaTokyo, Japan

Eat: ‘Bread of the Forest 2001’

Wonderment is Yoshihiro Narisawa’s stock in trade. As the restaurant has eased past the decade mark, the chef’s love of the natural world has

come ever more to the fore. Though this is a decidedly international restaurant – more cosmopolitan than many of its Toyko contemporaries, and with a French bedrock to its cooking – Japanese products remain the

focal point. These include fugu from Aichi prefecture, skewered, grilled and served with sudachi citrus, and irabu sea snake from Okinawa

transformed into an elegant broth abob with cubes of taro.

9D.O.M.

São Paulo, Brazil

Eat: Palm heart fettuccine with mushrooms

D.O.M. chef Alex Atala is visibly passionate when talking about the Amazon and his most recent findings, urging diners to sample

each ingredient so he can share his discoveries. His favourites include jambu, a tongue-tingling herb that he also serves in a potent

cachaça, and priprioca, a root previously used only in cosmetics and developed into a foodstuff after his team’s meticulous research.

Such produce forms the centrepiece of a pared-back à la carte offering, as well as four- or eight-course tasting menus.

10Gaggan

Bangkok, Thailand

Eat: Free-range lamb chops, sous-vide, grilled and finished with green herbs oil

The street food of his home town of Kolkata and a formative stint at El Bulli are the twin inspirations behind chef Gaggan Anand’s

boundary-pushing restaurant in downtown Bangkok. Set up in 2010, Gaggan reinvents regional Indian cuisine using modernist cooking

methods. The approach is playful, adventurous and thought-provoking, with classic street dishes de-constructed and reinterpreted without

losing what made them special in the first place.

7Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

London, UK

Eat: Spring Tart c.1772 – Gariguette strawberries, rose, lovage and basil yogurt and goat’s milk ice cream

When Dinner by Heston Blumenthal opened less than five years ago, many wondered whether it would offer the same hyper-experimental

cuisine as the chef’s famous The Fat Duck in Berkshire. But by celebrating bigger, more boisterous flavours, recreating British culinary history

and teleporting age-old recipes into the 21st century, Dinner has carved out its very own niche. Dishes such as meat fruit (a ball of chicken liver

parfait encased in mandarin jelly) have gained cult status.

Best Restaurant in Asia



4CentralLima, Peru

Eat: Octopus in purple coal

Chef Virgilio Martinez has taken Peruvian cuisine to a new, extreme elevation. Central, which captured the top spot on Latin America’s 50 Best

Restaurants list in 2014, takes diners on a vertical journey across Peru’s landscape, serving native ingredients grown at various altitudes. The

mountains, sea, desert and jungle are all represented as Central’s tasting menu travels from 25m below to 4,200m above sea level. Fresh produce

from the restaurant’s urban garden and the in-house filtration system (promising the purest water possible) are a focus here. But diners must

also be prepared to try ingredients previously unknown to most Peruvians, let alone the rest of the world. These include cushuro, the caviar-like bacteria found in the mountains after a rainstorm; tunta, a

white freeze-dried tuber dating back to the Incan Empire; and airampo, a bright magenta member of the cactus family grown in the Andes.

5Eleven Madison Park

New York, USA

Eat: Honey lavender duck with apple and rutabaga

If the recipe for an outstanding restaurant is creating the perfect balance between great food and impeccable service, then Eleven Madison Park co-owners Daniel Humm and Will Guidara have hit the jackpot. The pair

believe in running the restaurant from both sides of the wall – the kitchen and the dining room – and the combination of chef Humm’s talent with Guidara’s front-of-house charm makes for an unforgettable experience.

Dishes are playful and often interactive – the Name That Milk dessert comes as an ornate wooden box containing four bars of specially-

commissioned Mast Brothers chocolate, some pencils and a card with four animal drawings. Diners must determine which belongs to which

animal – ie, that made with cow’s, sheep’s, goat’s or buffalo’s milk. Humm’s tasting menu focuses on New York’s rich agricultural bounty, but dishes

are frequently tailored specifically for guests, who are each painstakingly researched by Guidara’s team to create the perfect bespoke experience.

6Mugaritz

San Sebastián, Spain

Eat: Ice shreds, scarlet shrimp perfume

At Mugaritz, there is no menu – at least, not in advance of a meal. Diners are instead treated to 24 individually tailored courses to suit their tastes

and desires (and dietary requirements). The lack of menu is just one example of how Mugaritz dispenses with traditional dining norms in its

quest to deliver a complete sensory and creative experience. Edible cutlery and centrepieces are other routes to delivering the stories, flavours, smells and textures that make up chef-owner Andoni Luis

Aduriz’s idea of the perfect journey through food. Born in the Basque gastronomic heartland of San Sebastián and schooled at El Bulli with

Ferran Adrià, it’s no surprise Aduriz is capable of extraordinary things. In 1998, Mugaritz was born and in 2006 entered this list, helping secure

Aduriz’s place among the Spanish greats. Named after a solitary 200-year-old oak tree that grows in the hills inland from San Sebastián,

Mugaritz’s location is as spectacular as its food.

Best Restaurant in North America


Best Restaurant in South America



3Noma

Copenhagen, Denmark

Eat: Sweet shrimps wrapped in ramson leaves

It has been something of a whirlwind 12 months for René Redzepi and the Noma team. As well as reclaiming the number one spot in the 2014 edition of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants

list, Redzepi upped sticks and moved Noma to Japan for a hugely over-subscribed five-week pop-up earlier this year that

received wild critical acclaim.Now back on Danish soil, the Noma team has been re-energised

by its experience in the Land of the Rising Sun, where indigenous ingredients such as raw botan ebi shrimp and wild duck were

served to Tokyo diners with dramatic effect. Now they have turned their attention to Redzepi’s beloved

Nordic terroir once again. Dishes are in step with the seasons, such as milk curd and the first garlic of 2015; the first green

shoots of spring with a scallop marinade, and fermented wild plums and wild beach roses, with the restaurant’s 17 or so strong tasting menu items taking diners on a gastronomic

tour of Denmark’s culinary bounty.A return to home ground also sees Redzepi doing what he

does best: playing with techniques such as fermenting and pickling for creations beyond most people’s eating perceptions.

Noma’s ability to remain fresh and to assimilate culinary cultures other than its own demonstrates not just the immense skill of

Redzepi and his team, but also the global importance of Noma. It remains among the most influential restaurants of

this century.

2 Osteria Francescana

Modena, Italy

Eat: The crunchy part of the lasagne

Despite the fact Massimo Bottura frequently travels the globe, has built an international reputation and has seen his recent book Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef published in several languages, his food

remains deeply Italian. In fact, his dishes are a joyful celebration of Emilia-Romagna – the chef’s famous food-producing home region in

northern Italy in which his elegant restaurant resides.Bottura is renowned for his twists on Italian culinary mores – Five Ages

of Parmigiano Reggiano sees the region’s famed cheese served in forms and textures most diners will never have experienced, for example – but his menu also includes deliciously executed classics such as tagliatelle

with hand-chopped ragu and risotto cooked with veal jus. In parallel, the Sensations tasting menu experiments with local,

seasonal ingredients to extraordinary effect. From snacks such as exquisite rabbit macaroons through eel ravioli to suckling pig with balsamic vinegar, dining at Osteria Francescana is an exploration

of the region’s produce and traditions delivered in a supremely contemporary fashion. It’s also a reflection of Bottura’s inquisitive

nature – he is continually looking at how to evolve his country’s food, inspired by his love of art, music, his family and his travels.

Now 20 years old, the restaurant is located in Modena’s quiet back streets and houses a series of striking modern artworks across

several dining spaces. The faultless service and imaginative wine programme is directed with quiet charisma by Beppe Palmieri.

However, it is in the kitchen, as well as from Bottura’s inventive and boundless imagination, where the real magic is produced.


1El Celler de Can Roca

Girona, Spain

Eat: Mackerel with pickles and mullet roe

The collective genius of the Roca brothers is well documented. The holy trinity of head chef Joan’s thoughtful but original cooking, pastry chef Jordi’s imagination-defying desserts

and sommelier Josep’s beautifully considered wine pairings already adds up to significantly more than the sum of its parts, before you add in a vibrant family dynamic and deep

sense of hospitality.But the reason this 55-seat contemporary Catalan restaurant is back on top of the world is the trio’s equal brilliance in ensuring that they never stop feeding their own (and their

team’s) knowledge and imaginations through unusual initiatives.In 2013, they premiered El Somni, a theatrical multi-sensory production that explored the

interaction between food, music and art and involved collaborating with numerous creatives, technicians and sensory experts. In 2014, the entire team embarked on an ambitious and

unprecedented restaurant tour across the southern US and part of Latin America, temporarily closing the restaurant back home in the meantime. Less publicly, El Celler is at the forefront of a ‘gastro-botanical’ research project called Terra Animada that is cataloguing rare wild species

with the aim of reintroducing them into our food systems. None of the above examples would matter, of course, if they didn’t feed back into the

evolution and progression of the dining experience at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona. A meal in the tranquil glass-walled dining space is at once comforting and yet gastronomically challenging,

the food simultaneously artisanal and technical, with references to both the traditional and the avant-garde. Crucially, this is a restaurant that has never forgotten its humble roots, its

sense of familial warmth, or the need to serve remarkably delicious dishes and outstanding wines.

World’s Best Restaurant


Best Restaurant in Europe


Documents

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